A FOR- AY INTO WORLDS OF VI- BRATION In 1934, Estonian biophilosopher Jakob von Uex- of the spider are thus extended through the mate- küll penned a provocative text exploring animals' rial threads of its web, which acts as a network for perception of their environments, the translated conducting the vibrational semiotics through which title of which is A Foray Into the Worlds of Ani- the spider's Umwelt takes shape. In the paper by mals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning. In this Introduction Hilton Japyassu and Kevin Laland (Extended spider Introduction work, Uexküll details his theory of Umwelten: that cognition), they take this relationship further, pro- all living creatures experience life in terms of their posing that the web not only extends the spider's unique, spatio-temporal sensory-perceptual world, senses, but also it's cognition: allowing the spider or Umwelt. In this context, animals are not simply to offload cognitive tasks to its web. The spider responding blindly to stimuli, but actively inter- and web are thus a deeply entangled and living as- preting the signs appropriate to them; actions that semblage; what Studio Saraceno has come to refer bring their world into being. For von Uexküll, the to by the neologism: spider/web. Umwelt (of human and nonhuman animals alike) is thus a species-specific subjective construction. The paper by Beth Mortimer et al (Tuning the instrument) explores how vibrations travel within The Umwelt or subjective sensory world partic- spider/webs, and examines the spider's ability to ular to spiders is very different from our own. tune this instrument. With its sensitive legs resting As explored in the papers by Friedrich Barth (The on the silken, trembling threads of this web, the Vibration Sense) and William Eberhard (Art Show) spider is thus already a musician; playing, tweak- , the spider's primary means of perceiving and un- ing and responding to the vibrations that travel derstanding the world is through vibration . Spiders through this floating material body. This observa- lack 'ears' for hearing, and despite having eight tion of spiders as vibratory musicians is not new eyes, web-building spiders have very poor vision. -as we can see in the 1904 paper by Fred Lahee Instead, the spider possess specialised organs for (The calls of spiders), the 1905 paper by James sensing airborne and substrate-borne vibrations: Porter (The Habits, Instincts, and Mental Powers of Spiders), or the 1915 paper by William Barrows trichobothria (hair-like extensions that cover the (The reactions of an orb-weaving spider), which spider's legs), and slit sensilla, which afford the notes the spider's reactions to the tremulations of spiders an acute sensitivity to the vibrations mov- a tuning fork, or a vibrating rubber band. The essay ing through their Umwelt. These are sense organs by David Toop (Filament Drums) further explores a for which we humans possess no recognisable tangled history of relationships between spider silk cognates. and musical instruments in other cultural traditions. A vibrational sensory capacity is not singular to Ultimately, what these instruments provocatively spiders. The study of substrate-borne vibrational explore is the possibility of interspeciecs com- communication in animals is a relatively new subset munication; of opening up a dialogue of sorts with of bioacoustics known as biotremology , introduced nonhuman animals, who have persistently been de- in this reader via the text by Peggy Hill and An- nied a meaningful place in our conversations. If our dreas Wessel (Biotremology), and explored spe- sensory worls truly are uncommunicating, how might cifically in relation to spider vibrational signalling we begin a dialogue? Is a conversation even possi- in Peggy's text (Quiet Listening). Matija Gogala's ble? The possibilities and problematics of communi- paper (Sound or Vibration: an Old Question of Insect cation with nonhuman animals is further explored in Communication) also explores this phenomenon of the text by Vinciane Despret's (in U is for Umwelt), vibrational communication, situating it in the con- which return us again to Uexkull's theories of Um- text of the history of studies of insect acoustic welten. In this text, Despret proposes that -rather communication. than seeing animals as beings in unique worlds, we might think of them as beings with worlds: worlds For web-building spiders (which number roughly that are multiple, porous, entangled. half of all known species), their web is an instru- ment for vibrational communication -a vibrant and We conclude with an excerpt from Stefan Helm- organic network of silk threads, whose architec- reich and Michele Friedner (When sound studies ture is acutely attuned to the vibrational tremors meet deaf studies), in which the authors raise the that pass through it: the signals the spider sends possibility that vibrations -which 'edge between through the web to gauge its tension and struc- tactilty and hearing'- are transgressive sensory tural properties, the signals sent by other spiders intercessors, and thus might be capable of trav- (potential mates, or predators), the vibrations elling between and interrupting different sensory produced by the spider's prey, or even the low worlds or Umwelten. Following this provocation frequency tremors produced by the wind. Without forward, we speculate that perhaps vibration might the web, the spider cannot eat, or gain an adequate be a way for us to begin a shared conversation with picture of her surroundings. The sensory capacities A reader on the vibrational sensory world of spider/webs 1 our nonhuman kin. A reader on the vibrational sensory world of spider/webs 2 The Vibration Sense 5 Barth, F. G. Index Art Show 10 Eberhard, W. G. Spider cognition: What is it like to be a spider? 12 Jackson, R. R. & Cross, F. R. Extended spider cognition 14 Japyassú, H. F. & Laland, K. N. Biotremology 15 Hill, P. S. M. & Wessel, A. Quiet Listening 20 Hill, P. S. M. Sound or Vibration, an Old Question of Insect 22 Communication Gogala, M. Tuning the instrument: sonic properties in the 23 spider's web Mortimer, B., Soler, A., Siviour, C. R., Zaera, R., & Vollrath, F. The Calls of Spiders 25 Lahee, F. H. The Habits, Instincts, and Mental Powers of 26 Spiders, Genera, Argiope and Epeira Porter, J. P. The reactions of an orb-weaving spider , Epei- 28 ra sclopetaria Clerck, to rhythmic vibrations of its web. Barrows, W. (1915). Filament Drums: the Endless Instrument 31 Toop, D. Spider and I 34 Ziporyn, E. Arachnid Instruments 36 Saraceno, S. T. U is for Umwelt: Do beasts know ways of being 37 in the world Despret, V. Sound studies meets deaf studies 41 Helmreich, S. & Friedner, M. 3 A reader on the vibrational sensory world of spider/webs Yes, but how do they do it? For many people some of the most intriguing questions regarding spider webs center on how a small, nearly blind animal with limited brainpower can build such precisely organized, complex Art Show webs that have such uniformly spaced lines and such finely balanced tensions. Perhaps it is easiest to appreciate an orb weaving spi- der's achievements if you put yourself in her place, and imagine what it would be like if you were attempting to build a new orb. To start, you must first blindfold your- self: the spider's eyesight is very poor, her eyes are on the wrong side of her body to see the web's lines as she hangs below them; and in any case she often works at night. Nor can she see any of the potential attach- ment sites, such as branches and leaves in her vicinity. The closest human analogy would be that of a blind man who must explore and climb through the tangled branches of trees on the basis of touch, leaving a silk line behind wherever he goes. And you will not be able to explore any of the spaces where you have been by swinging or flapping your lines, because the air is highly viscous at the scale of the spider; for a human, an analogous situation would be building a web of elastic ropes under water. Finding and recognizing an appropriate site in which to build your web will be one of the most challenging stages. The supports to which you might attach lines are arranged extremely irregularly in space, and each site is different (the smooth rectangular frames that spiders used in this exhibit are NOT fair approximations to natural conditions). You cannot even sense the pres- ence or absence of nearby attachment points or obsta- cles, much less their positions relative to each other until either you or your lines contact them. And even if you could have seen these objects, you will be unable fly to them, to shoot out your lines to reach them, or even, in many cases, to walk to them (imagine making a line between the widely spaced twigs on two differ- ent branches, or on different trees). You must instead depend on the vagarities of the wind; you will have to launch new lines, allowing their tips float away on ir- regular air currents, and hope that they will eventually snag on objects that can serve as supports for your web. As you discover attachment sites in this haphaz- ard way, you will need recognize whether they border an open site that is sufficiently large to accommodate orb that you are planning, and whether this space it is free of further protruding objects that could interfere with your orb. You will need to adjust the area of the open space that you are planning to occupy in accord with the amount of silk you that have available in your silk glands (this will vary with how much you ate and how much silk you have spun recently).